ON THE MOVE-RBC hires 3 UBS brokers who managed $200 mln assets

NEW YORK Jan 27 (Reuters) - RBC Wealth Management, the U.S.
brokerage arm of the Royal Bank of Canada, said on
Tuesday it had recruited three brokers from UBS Wealth
Management Americas where they managed $200 million in
client assets.

Advisers James Winkler and Lauren Johnson, and Randi
Richardson, a client associate, officially joined RBC's office
in Plano, Texas, in early December.

Winkler, a 38-year-industry-veteran who, along with Johnson,
produced an annual $1.3 million in fees and commissions at UBS,
said he never considered moving to one of the four biggest U.S.
brokerages, Morgan Stanley, Wells Fargo Advisors
or Bank of America's Merrill Lynch. He wanted the
culture of a bank but at a smaller broker dealer.

"To go from where we were to another one of the large
(brokerages) was going to be the same," Winkler said, referring
to the similarities in culture. "We liked that RBC has around
1,900 financial advisers instead of several thousand."

By contrast, UBS has around 7,100 financial advisers and the
largest brokerage, Morgan Stanley, has around 16,000.

UBS did not respond to requests for comment.

Winkler said he anticipates they will be able to bring about
70 percent of the clients and assets they managed at UBS with
them to RBC. That would be about 75 families, he said.

When advisers move firms, they go through a highly regulated
process to inform their clients they are leaving their old job
and to allow the client to chose either to keep their money at
the original firm or to move with the adviser somewhere new.

Winkler and Johnson work primarily with family business
owners and corporate executives helping to manage clients'
continuity plans, family trusts, 401(k) roll-overs, and
retirement planning.